Paula White, evangelical adviser to President Trump, visited the border this week. Considering comparisons between Jesus and unaccompanied immigrant children, she had this to say, according to the Christian Post:
I think so many people have taken biblical scriptures out of context on this, to say stuff like, 'Well, Jesus was a refugee.' Yes, He did live in Egypt for three-and-a-half years. But it was not illegal. If He had broken the law then He would have been sinful and He would not have been our Messiah.
Ms White believes that if Jesus had broken the law, he would have been sinful.
So why, pray tell, does Ms White believe Jesus was crucified? How would she explain why the Romans incarcerated him? How would she explain the religious leaders who detained and handed him over to the civil authorities? Indeed the Gospel records are replete with Jesus being accused of all sorts of things by the authorities of this world.
Our Savior was a law breaker. He was condemned to death for it. And yet before God he was without fault. He did not sin.
Unless we're prepared to declare every law of this world just, we must beware of conflating legality and sinfulness. And perhaps when Christians encounter the stranger and the prisoner, rather than rushing to join the authorities of this world in decreeing punishment, we should join our Savior in meeting them, welcoming them, as bearers of his own image.
Jesus himself decreed the punishment for those who will not:
So why, pray tell, does Ms White believe Jesus was crucified? How would she explain why the Romans incarcerated him? How would she explain the religious leaders who detained and handed him over to the civil authorities? Indeed the Gospel records are replete with Jesus being accused of all sorts of things by the authorities of this world.
Our Savior was a law breaker. He was condemned to death for it. And yet before God he was without fault. He did not sin.
Unless we're prepared to declare every law of this world just, we must beware of conflating legality and sinfulness. And perhaps when Christians encounter the stranger and the prisoner, rather than rushing to join the authorities of this world in decreeing punishment, we should join our Savior in meeting them, welcoming them, as bearers of his own image.
Jesus himself decreed the punishment for those who will not:
Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
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